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Bishnu Gautam

Introduction (Laxmi Pratisthan)

Laxmi Pratisthan is a memorial foundation founded by the family members and well-wishers in the memory of Late Kumar Gautam and Late Balram Gautam. It is established under the name of Laxmi Gautam, the mother of the deceased, for her consolation, having herself as the Patron and the father Bishnu Gautam as a Chairman.
About Bishnu Gautam, the founder and chairman of the Laxmi Prathisthan, in his own words.

I am Bishnu Gautam, dedicated to social service from the inner core of my heart. I love writing lyrics and other genre of literature. I was born in Shivalaya-7, a remote village in Kavrepalanchowk in 1962. From the childhood, I had a dream to change the condition of rural Nepal. Later I shifted to Kathmandu where I started my career. After trying many professions from government jobs to own business, I had worked in tourism sector for more than a decade. Later, my elder son too entered the same profession and he too was doing well. Middle son was achieving success in his Study in America, receiving various awards one after another.

Having two successful tourism entrepreneurs at the home, our family was a happy one. Amidst the happy moments, we suddenly encountered with a cruel destiny. Within just nine months duration, we lost two of our sons on road accidents: elder son in Kathmandu and the middle son in America. The sudden blow of fate turned everything upside down. Our family was mutilated with grief and we were in a great fire of agony. For some time, the world turned blank and everything seemed black. One fine morning, a quick idea sprang up from the tormented mind; a determi-nation to give true tribute to the departed souls. Others fulfill their parent's dream but we shouldered our deceased children's dream of complete social transformation. Together with friends and relatives, we established Laxmi Pratisthan, a memorial foundation through which we are trying to make them alive. A deep shock and unbearable grief turned a businessman and an entre-preneur to a social worker. Three and half years are now passed since the establishment of Laxmi Pratisthan. It has been working in the field of community school empowerment, youth and women empowerment, traffic awareness, health and environment through education, skill enhancement and support services.

In these two years, I have now gained thousands of sons and daughters & earned gratitude of millions of smiling faces. My narrow identity has been expanded now with the expansion of Laxmi Pratisthan's activities and achievements. The pain of losing two promising sons at such young age still haunts and the loss is irreparable. Yet, I feel good to have grief turned into energy.
About Laxmi Prathisthan:

A non-profit memorial foundation established by Mr. Bishnu Gautam and his wife Laxmi Gautam in memory of their two sons Kumar Gautam and Balram Gautam, killed within nine months in separate road accidents in Nepal and USA.

Foundation is dedicated for social transformation without any bias towards religion, race, gender, class and creed.

What does the organisation do?
  • Conduct community-level children targeted education programs.
  • Conduct community empowerment and awareness raising; and vocational and skill development training programs for employment and income generation.
  • Conduct blood donation, general health check-up, and eye-camps.
  • Facilitate cost-free cataract surgeries in cooperation with Tilganga Eye Hospital.
  • Carry out programs/activities towards reducing road accidents.
  • Conduct drivers training program with target of producing 1000 professional women drivers within three-years with twin objectives of empowering women, and bringing down road accidents.
  • Working for the upliftment and social transformation for the very backwarded and underprivileged Chepang communities.

When did we start this organization?

We started organization December 17, 2009.

Reason behind starting Laxmi Prathisthan.

Laxmi Pratisthan was founded in abnormal circumstances having lost two sons in road accidents in between nine and half months of time. It was founded by the family members in an effort to divert the bereaved minds into positive and con-structive way and to bring social transformation in the lives of underprivileged communities. What vision do you carry for the organization?

  • We envision a self-reliant society based on equity, equality and social sensitivity where even the vulnerable groups enjoy the dignified lives.
  • We envisage being a truly national and professional organization that takes individual (child, youth, adult, women etc) as the focus unit and serves the community as a whole.

Support from the government and organizations:

We are getting small grants for the local bodies, a representative of government for carrying out skills training in local level. Apart from that, we are also support-ed by foreign organizations such a Stitching Aphelion (the Netherlands), The Mountain Fund (USA) and others. We also get support from Nepali and foreign individuals living here and abroad.

Do you have any special incident that you want to share with us?

The special incident in my life is the untimely demise of my two sons who left us so shockingly at their tender age who were achieving their career high in their respective fields.

After this incident we were such shocked and bereaved that there were no moti-vation to continue our lives and I was planning to suicide killing my other family members by plunging vehicle deep into the river along with all the family. But finally, I came to realize that this is the incident that happens to all the people and we all are bound to die one day. I decided to establish a foundation in their memory so that they will remain alive forever by doing social and welfare activities in the favour of needy and helpless people, women and the communities. Now it has helped us to live and motivated us to do more and more activities.

In the short span of time, we have our presence in different fields including Education, Skill Training (Technical and vocational), Traffic awareness, Women Empowerment etc. and our work area has widened to several districts.

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Any facts, figures or references stated here are made by the author & don't reflect the endorsement of iU at all times unless otherwise drafted by official staff at iU. This article was first published here on September 2013.

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